


A Crown of Thorns

by oswhine



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-02
Updated: 2015-08-02
Packaged: 2018-04-12 15:07:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4484054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oswhine/pseuds/oswhine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He was dead, they were alive, and that was the biggest distinction of all." Oh, Noah. This is what a ghost's life is like.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Crown of Thorns

**Author's Note:**

> alternate title: The Thoughts of a Ghost. Angsty Noah. I mainly wrote this because I'm frustrated about the lack of Noah in the Raven Cycle. Includes spoilers. Also: my first paragraphs are always weak (and filled with cliches sometimes), so please don't judge a fanfic by its opening paragraph.

Alone. He was always alone. Even when he was with the rest of them he was alone, because how could you belong to the living when you were dead? At least he could pretend, when they were together, that they were the same, that they cared about him. It had been so much easier before they'd found his body. They acted differently around him now - the change in manner was so subtle, just like him, sometimes, that he wasn't sure that they even noticed it. But it was there. He was dead, they were alive, and that was the biggest distinction of all. He just wanted to belong.

And then Cabeswater would pull him away, and he would miss gaps in their lives, periods they would spend without him, without any need for him. If he never came back, would they care? They didn't know what it was like, all alone in Cabeswater, surrounded by leaves and a thicker wall of doubting thoughts. It sheltered him, cradled him, the boy who had died in its walls. He would never escape. It wasn't malevolent, but it still wasn't comforting, being in a forest where the trees literally had ears. All alone.

And then he would think about Whelk, and wonder if, even if he hadn't felt like it at the time, he'd been alone when he was with him as well. And he would think about Gansey's relentless search for the king, and wonder if the same hunger that had pulled at Whelk would find Gansey. Would it be Noah again, even more insignificant now, who was betrayed?

He hated these thoughts. But he couldn't push them away. They were like thorns, nestled in his skin, in his mind, a crown of thorns, and if he pushed them they would just swing back in again at him.

This was why he liked being with the others. They cleared the path slightly for him, pushing the thorns away, but they were still there.

Did they ever wonder what it was like for him, to rely on a strength that wasn't your own to keep you present? To flicker between two different worlds, to be in between the truly living and the dead that rested peacefully in the ground? Did they try to imagine never being able to see their family again? He knew Blue had suffered when Maura disappeared, had felt Blue's pain and anger and anxiety, but she had got her back. She could hug her and talk with her. His family wasn't dead. They hadn’t disappeared into a mystical cave, either. They still lived in the same Henrietta house with the dying flowers in their hanging baskets on the front porch. He went to visit them sometimes. He would follow his mother around the house, pet his sisters' hair, watch his father as he sat at his desk and pinched the bridge of his nose between his eyebrows like he'd always done. But they never looked up, never noticed him. So instead he followed Adam and Ronan around, petted Blue's hair, and watched Gansey doing his schoolwork at his desk.

But it was never the same. It never would be. But he was used to that feeling, had lived through more than seven years of it.

When this feeling got so strong it filled his whole self, Cabeswater took him away to a world that had never seemed real in the first place.

And he would sit there, arms around his knees, surrounded by his thoughts, until he had enough strength to return to Blue and the Raven Boys and he would pretend nothing was wrong until Blue left or he ran out of energy or felt the need to go away. He wondered if this cycle would ever change.

The Raven Boys. He had died in his Aglionby blazer, and technically he still was one, but he didn’t feel like one and Gansey and Adam and Ronan, the true Raven Boys, didn’t treat him like one.

The Raven Boys. In another life, he still was one. In another life, he still belonged.


End file.
